Thursday, 2 June 2011

Review - The Fourth Kind (2009 - Dir. Olatunde Osunsanmi)

Interesting idea, poor execution. This more or less sums up The Fourth Kind's attempt togo one step further than Close Encounters, when in reality it comes nowhere near.

The film tells the story of Dr. Abigail Tyler and claims to combine dramatisations and 'actual' video and audio footage she recorded in Nome, Alaska in 2000. The real and the drama are presented in split screen fashion to underline the 'realism' and create a psuedo-documentary feel to proceedings.

This fails miserably as the 'real' footage could not look less real if they'd tried! Real people are generally natural and not bad Hollywood actors, real situations generally don't have special effects in them and real events have generally happened at some point. The dramatisations are actually more believable than the 'real' footage at times!

The initial big claims of the film ultimately backfire as the audience feel cheated by the 'hoax' nature of the actual footage and you are left with a real sense that you have been conned out of your hard earned cash. To add insult to injury, research has shown that there is little evidence to back up any strange events in Nome or even the existence of a Dr. Abigail Tyler.

The only positives are some impressive aerial shots from the UFO perspective (actually taken by a UFO I'm guessing) and the acting of Milla Jovovich and Elias Koteas. However both are let down by a woeful script and the film's pompous self importance.

The whole thing is like the extended outtakes from a really bad episode of the X-Files, and thinking about it, if you fancy some alien abduction action, you'd probably be better advised to watch X-Files Season 7.

2/10

doccortex

If you like this (or not) you could try:Paranormal Activity, Paranormal Activity 2, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Rec, Lake Mungo.